Patience, Perspective, and the Power of Story: An Interview with Toni Ann Johnson, by Scott LaMascus

Patience, Perspective, and the Power of Story: An Interview with Toni Ann Johnson, by Scott LaMascus Interviews [email protected] Mon, 10/16/2023 - 13:46 Storyteller Toni Ann Johnson uses her skills as an actor, playwright, and fiction writer to tell powerful stories of race, reconciliation, and the effects of lingering racism. She is award-winning on stage and screen, most recently with her story collection Light Skin Gone to Waste (University of Georgia Press, 2022), selected for the 2021 Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction. When I spoke to Johnson in Los Angeles and later by email, we explored the role stories can play in our understanding of truths, including matters many would rather forget. Scott LaMascus: If you were joining the late Flannery O’Connor on her porch in Milledgeville, Georgia, what do you hope she would praise about your stories that were honored with the award named for her? Toni Ann Johnson: I wouldn’t expect Ms. O’Connor to praise my stories. Her racism would likely have prevented her from appreciating their subject matter. In her letters, she wrote: About the Negroes, the kind I don’t like is the philosophizing prophesying pontificating kind, the James Baldwin kind. Very ignorant but never silent. Baldwin can tell us what it feels like to be a Negro in Harlem but he tries to tell us everything else too. O’Connor was put off by James Baldwin’s writing because it dared to stray beyond the... Continue reading at 'World Literature Today'

[ World Literature Today | 2023-10-16 18:46:19 UTC ]
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Patience, Perspective, and the Power of Story: An Interview with Toni Ann Johnson, by Scott LaMascus

Patience, Perspective, and the Power of Story: An Interview with Toni Ann Johnson, by Scott LaMascus Interviews [email protected] Mon, 10/16/2023 - 13:46 Storyteller Toni Ann Johnson uses her skills as an actor, playwright, and fiction writer to... Continue reading at World Literature Today

[ World Literature Today | 2023-10-16 18:46:19 UTC ]
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